


Price Of Prosperity

by English is my death (Lena013)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen, Gods, Hurt Roronoa Zoro, Hurt/Comfort, Law is a good friend and nakama, Nakamaship, Pining Roronoa Zoro, Protective Monkey D. Luffy, Protective Mugiwara no Ichimi | Straw Hat Pirates, Roronoa Zoro is Bad At Feelings, Roronoa Zoro-centric, Sacrifice, Sacrifices, Self-Sacrifice, Smart Roronoa Zoro, Strong Female Characters, Uzumaki clan cameo, Wano Country (One Piece), Zoro Arch that we won't get to, Zoro has a lot of respect for women, Zoro is too loyal, Zoro loves nakama at the cost of his life, Zoro's in trouble, but without the clan itself, mixing Chinese and Japanese culture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29019894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lena013/pseuds/English%20is%20my%20death
Summary: Everything had been going well lately, despite the priority of the Kaido war, the hundreds of ridiculous Torao plans accepted and rejected, and the interesting samurai country, that was all... Luffy looked at Zoro, whose joy at their arrival was the briefest, despite his sincerity, and whose tension was visible from a mile away.Zoro believed that two-thirds of November had passed between the past and the future; that the stars were narrowing and the air was thinning; that if he did not repeat his choice, he would start a genocide. Again.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Roronoa Zoro, Roronoa Zoro & & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Roronoa Zoro & Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my native language, please understand and forgive me.

It all started with Wano.

_She had light green hair and amber-orange eyes. She read him lessons, running her fingers through his long hair, untangling the tangles. Soft skin, rough calluses, confident movements; soft voice, low intonation, sincere care; duty and affection, intertwined in red, instead of green. She took care of him, taught him, and nurtured him._

Luffy told them to wait here. Nothing complicated, just wait, blend in, put on a different kimono, change your name, _never take the bandana off your head or replace it with a stupid triangular hat_ , wait it out. Wait for the captain with a sharply stupefied ero-kok, who decided that the escape would put an end to their story. Zoro had always known that the cook was a special kind of mind, but not so... _damn stupid._

_"Shishou", he says, inhaling the hot summer air. Children's feet dangle from the ledge of a traditional house, fingers tear out the protruding threads of someone else's kimono, one sandal flies off the bare foot._

_Shishou lets out a soft chuckle as he slowly untangles the branches and leaves from his head._

_"Maybe we should just cut it off", he pleads, tired of sitting still. Even if it's shishou, it's been more than two hours. She hums behind him, and he feels it with his back pressed against her, and, forgetting her words, looks up sharply. "Don't laugh"._

_"I'm not laughing", she lies, smiling; her eyes sparkle with merriment and autumn leaves; he catches the early wrinkles on her young face, and hears the faint chime of three earrings. "I'm just thinking how I can explain the disappearance of the symbol of prosperity", there is a grim satisfaction and a hidden malice in her voice. He's small, but not stupid. He knows when Shishou is unhappy, though he tries to hide it._

_Her fingers are buried in the unraveled left side of his hair; green-green, long, that it's hard to lift your head after the bath; just like her._

_"One day", and her voice is like the whisper of dawn, "we'll get rid of them"._

_And he knows that shishou isn't talking about his hair._

Zoro doesn't remember Wano very well, everything merges into the same roads and into the same people's faces. He doesn't stay in one place for long, his body tells him to go forward, without looking back, his hand clenches on the handle of the Wado, almost never letting go; the air is salty, fishy, almost sea — _not mountain, not stuffy, not grassy._ Zoro meets Robin's eyes and doesn't recognize her immediately; it might be a disguise, someone more self-deceptive might have decided, but not Zoro. In his head, the tocsin sounds of wooden sandals on stone; in his head, the voices of people he hasn't seen in more than a decade drown out; in head have green hair and a _predestination_.

Zoro doesn't quite understand how he ended up in the port. But he finds himself thinking about jumping into the water and swimming away. He's done it before.

_Luffy, where are you?_

_Shishou smiled at him often and in many ways: from caring and love to condescension and an impudent grin. Shishou was one of the strongest in the village and wielded a sword as if performing a festive dance, welcoming the beginning of the new year and saying goodbye to the past. Shishou was alive, as they were supposed to be, though she always hated it when he said those words._

_But he didn't understand — why._

_Why does shishou hate who they are?_

_"Oh, child", she drawled, smiling at him more tenderly than his own mother ever could, "do you know what our hair and eyes mean?", he nodded. How could he not know? Everyone in the village knew him; everyone revered and praised him beforehand; and his blood family was thanked and respected. They never needed anything, they lived in prosperity and well-being. Shishou's wrinkles deepened and her eyes became sadder. "Our hair", she sits him on her lap, the long ends intertwined in a bizarre pattern,"our eyes", forehead to forehead, amber to amber, "our bodies and lives", hands on hearts, beats steady and loud, "all belong to us alone. Your life belongs only to you. We are strong because of who we are; because our eyes are from the sun, and our hair is from nature; because of how long we have to live. We are the children of the earth and the sun, accepting their prosperity and blessing. No more, no less._

_And that was the strangest thing he'd ever heard. Shishou must have hit herself hard somewhere, right? She couldn't say that. His ears are playing tricks on him._

_They belong to the village and the people._

_They can't live for themselves._

Seeing Luffy is like coming out of the ocean after a month of being there. Luffy is light and oxygen; happiness and freedom; ocean and adventure. He waited for him, long enough to be ready to go out alone to fight Yonko, counting down the hours and minutes instead of the days.

Zoro's vision is drowned in red when the captain lunges at him, but Zoro is ready, always ready for the captain's sudden embrace; and remembers it; red and blue, instead of green and white; black hair instead of green; a wide toothy smile, instead of a farewell, shouting/whispering his name:

~~_"Zoro"._ ~~

"Zo-o-o-oro-o-o-o!", Luffy pulls, swinging, and Zoro almost falls, slapping his stupid captain on the spine. Luffy laughs, jumps, twirls, exudes joy in his appearance, only to stop for a second, and then abruptly approach. "Your eyes are orange", the captain says, very close, and Zoro sees the reflection in the black pupils. Somewhere in the background, Nami shouts something, and the others appear, but Zoro... _doesn't run or drown; orange eyes burn in the dark and betray his; they want to take him as they took her; he promised; he promised her that…_

"Zoro?"

Luffy's voice is a mix of question and concern, tied in knots like the ends of green hair. Behind Luffy, the Nakama are frozen, having caught something suspicious, and they are watching them closely, observer over them and caring idiots, as they always were. Luffy has his promises and his vows, which Zoro can't break with his abandoned past.

"Nothing, Captain", he smiles sincerely, "I missed you".

_"Someday you will find people who will love you", the hand on his cheek is cold and painfully old, "I believe you will do better than I do. You're stronger than me, you're stronger than all of us. And you'll finish it"._

_'It's almost funny',_ Zoro thinks, as he spits out blood and finds a reflection of gray hair, with not-his-long-discarded, melted-down gold in his eyes.

"It's so disgusting of you to lie, shishou", shivers in his throat as the Kenbunshoku refuses to wake up.

_"My name is Kuina"._

_"Zoro. I challenge you to a fight!"_

He knew what he was doing by staying on this island. He knew how close _he was to it._ He knew how important it was for Luffy, Torao, everyone, to win this fight, this war. And he knew that he had been running away for too long; longer than anyone was allowed to, longer than anyone was allowed to.

But he couldn't lose this fight.

Even if it was his last breath. Even if he didn't become the world's greatest swordsman. Even if his entire body betrayed him, Wado was vibrating in his hand, and Luffy's voice seemed suspiciously loud and so far away in his ears.

_"Join my team!"_

_"Why should I?"_

_"You're strong, and you're a good man"._

He knew his time was up. After all, no earth and sun child in his village had ever lived longer than twenty. They had no right.

_"You will live", he sees Shishou's tears for the first time, a dagger in his hands, which she forces him to take, "please, Zoro, run. Run and don't come back, never, no matter what", gray hair touches his face, the long white sleeves wipe the moisture from his cheeks that didn't belong to him, the old face smiles at him, imprinted in his memory forever, he drowns in white, "otherwise this island will kill you"._

Shishou would have been so disappointed in him.


	2. Chapter 2

There are five things that everyone knew about Zoro: he was always lost, regardless of the situation, time of day, weather, island, time interval, just always and everywhere, living in some kind of my understanding of the world and its movements; he liked to drink and sleep, he drank more than Luffy ate, and slept more soundly than any island stands in its place, but despite this, he instantly sobered up and woke up if danger was approaching; he was enormously strong, and even more monstrous healed, if someone asks Chopper, Luffy even as User Devil Fruit and "D" at the same time, did not have the same survival rate as their unofficial first mate, and he is the cause of nervous breakdowns them doctor who claws need to pull information from your patient, confident that the disease is only for ordinary people; he is faithful and loyal to the last breath and step to the last word and look, he is faithful to his word and his captain, a loyal team and swords true to yourself, never retreating, and never abandon their words; he is extremely simple, with no secret plans, no clever moves or long-term strategies, Zoro is a straight man, even if his straight line is full of zigzags and loops.

And so all strawhats not have words to express the horror, when the presence of Zoro disappeared. As if it had fallen into the abyss, taking Zoro from under their noses, _they can't lose anyone else, they can't let someone kill one of them, not, never._ And they turn away from their fights: strawhats towards the falling figure; the rest are pure seething rage, which is for Luffy.

Law wasn't an idiot, and he knew where he should be when he should be, and he knew full well that they would have to lose this battle to get the swordsman out of here. And as soon as he reached it, late in front of the big deer, he realized that the plans would need to be more than just revised, and someone would have to drag the Mugiwara-ya away from the battlefield, _because his swordsman was almost dead._

The bandana has fallen from his head, the white shimmers with red, someone else's haki barely smoulders, the body barely breathes, and the heart, as if reluctantly, beats. Law assumes that this is a consequence of someone's Devil Fruit and almost begins to look for danger with his eyes, but Chopper barks at the patient, trying to bring him to his senses. The swordsman doesn't answer, which is a bad sign. They have to leave, urgently; the two doctors meet each other's eyes and nod in agreement.

"We have to go!" Law reports, tightening his grip on the nodachi.

"Cover us!" Chopper adds, squeezing Zoro's body tightly and carefully.

 _'He's too light',_ Chopper realizes with growing horror, and tells himself not to think about the worst. At their best, Zoro had stirred up his oldest wounds, which, of course, he hadn't allowed to be properly examined. Chopper tries to be optimistic, _even if white-instead-of-green doesn't inspire anything good._

The most difficult thing was to take Luffy, who was only able to calm down the thought that Zoro _needed_ them from the third time. Especially Luffy, everyone knows that; they all need Luffy to heal the wounds that could have been rotting for years, that they ignored and forgot. But when they arrived, all they needed was: Robin, and a huge amount of medicine to get out of the submarine. On the other side of the island, where Sanji and the captain were sent. The others were ordered to wait.

And they waited.

Two hours later, Sanji and Luffy returned, out of breath, dirty and battered, but with everything they needed.

Five o'clock, they were told to return to the sub again, and Robin returned.

Ten o'clock, Chopper came out looking grim and sad, saying he was useless at the moment, sobbing.

At seventeen o'clock, Torao came out, pale, with circles under his eyes, and his knees trembling with fatigue.

"I've stabilized it", Law begins, and many exhale, already fearing the worst, not knowing what they'll do if the worst comes. _What would they do if Zoro died?_ "But he's not coming around, and I don't think he's coming around anytime soon. He has complete, the most terrible thing I've seen, exhaustion of the body. Worse than you, Mugiwara-ya, after Marinford", they don't talk about it. Not that Law doesn't know it, but it might give them a better picture. He needs Luffy to understand this information.

Chopper sobs, sniffling through his snotty nose.

"It's about five times worse than the Thriller Bark", he adds, so that the other nakamas will also accept the deplorability of the situation, _because Chopper would never have shown Law's notes on Luffy after Marinford._ He's too protective of his nakama to give them the details of his mini-heart attack from the first page.

The mugiwaras lapsed into silence: Sanji chewing on the unlit cigarette he'd brought with him; Nami holding on to Usopp, who was also on the verge of hysteria, out of habit; Robin grimly pursing her lips as she recalled decades of experience in hiding emotions; Franky opening and closing his mouth in confusion, not knowing what to do; Brooke staring at the wall, knuckling the fabric in his lap; Jinbei standing silently against the wall, Watching the entrance, Luffy stared at the paper sliding door as if it was the biggest obstacle in his life.

He stood up abruptly, startling Usopp and Chopper.

"Me need to see him", Luffy went ahead, but before him, he took a step towards Law, grabbing his elbow, "get out of the way, Torao".

Luffy didn't have time for Law's games and tricks — he needed to see Zoro. _He needs to see that he's breathing, feel that his heart is beating, spread the haki enough to reach Zoro._ He needs Zoro. And Torao doesn't dare stand in his way, even though he's also nakama.

"You shouldn't see him, Mugiwara-ya", Law says, without malice, with sympathy and warning. As they say to those who need to identify the bodies of their relatives. Luffy hadn't heard that tone since the Gray Terminal. The alien fingers felt icy, just as they had when Dogra had reported Sabo's death; when he had let Ace go, and everyone around him seemed cold, not hot enough to be Mera-Mera-no-Mi users.

Luffy stands for no more than a second or two before he pulls his hand away and walks over, opening the flimsy door loudly. Luffy tells himself that he's ready for anything; that he's probably seen more, that he's been in that state himself; that Zoro will pull through, _as he always does._ Luffy looks at the layers of bandages that blend in with the painfully light skin, instead of the tanned skin; at the protruding bones and barely defined muscles, instead of the usual strong figure; at the four IVs with two or three bags on each, snaking into the veins; at the tired dark, almost like Torao, circles under the eyes, dry lips, cracked skin; most unrecognizably, he has gray hair, much whiter than his grandfather's— and he stops.

Luffy doesn't know when he got to the bed, when he sat down so carefully, as if he was afraid that Zoro would disappear from the extra movement, when he began to greedily absorb every other person's breath in and out, when night came and when he ran his hand through someone else's hair: _they are Zoro, this is Zoro, Zoro's presence emanates from him, he still smells like grass, like Zoro._

_This is Zoro, Zoro, Zoro, Zoro, Zoro…_

Luffy doesn't know when he suddenly started crying, when the pain returned to his soul, opening the doors like a family, reminding him of Ace, reminding him of how helpless he was, reminding him that despite all his strength, experience, knowledge, _he didn't even notice that Zoro was ill…_

Luffy doesn't know when the morning came, and then the next seven of them, but Zoro never woke up.


	3. Chapter 3

_Shishou has apple petals in her hair and an orange-pink hanfu with black pumps. She eats a red-and-yellow apple, wiping the juice from the corner of her lips, and smiles at him, tossing one of them in his direction. She lets out a giggle as the apple jumps out of his small hands and hits her forehead. Then he thinks he doesn't like that part of her._

_Shishou has a young face and clear skin: no scars or freckles; no grimm or oils. She can tell him her opinion with a single glance of her burning eyes, standing between him and the elders: imperceptibly, barely perceptibly, with a turn of her hip and a natural movement of her shoulder; smiling so false, so wrong, but it for some reason only he notices. She teaches him to speak, not in speeches and polite phrases, like other teachers, but in common everyday life, so that he can say "hello" to his sister, without adding anything superfluous, as others hammer in with sticks. Then he thinks it was an unnecessary and boring pastime._

_Shishou has a strong grip on the hilt and superhuman strength when she slice through **mountains** ; the blade reflects the sun in the glare, but he does not squint his eyes, never needed to, just as the forest will never hurt him. She tells him that there is a whole world outside the village, other villages, other mountains, other people, and forests. She tells him about the ocean: a place vast, blue, boundless, and **not belonging to them.**_

_"We don't belong to the sea", she wove the words into his braids, brushing his hair back as he counted the night fireflies. "We are not children of the sea, no matter what anyone tries to tell you. It is beautiful and attractive, but not for us. There is no land in the sea, and the sun will be your enemy, not your protector", Shishou's fingers slide past not only his strands, she weaves her green, green hair into his, not seeing the difference._

_He counted twenty-eight fireflies by the paper lantern and nine by the pond._

_"What happens if I go out to sea?"_

_The stars in the sky are unusually dim, so he remembers shishou the laughter as sad._

_"You will never find your way back, doomed to wander forever"._

The sun of ~~East~~ ~~Blue~~ , ~~Grand~~ ~~Line~~ , ~~New~~ ~~World~~ , Wano burns his skin, no forest has welcomed him, promising the laws of the food chain, and his eyes have not seen anything in the dark for a long time, feeling blind. He remembered the first days, months, years away from home. Far from the mountains; constellations closer than from sea level, and with the smell of plowed earth. The sun destroys his eyes and skin, and it is impossible to see clearly beyond ten meters. This body didn't belong to him (it never had), but to feel _so helpless_ was terrible.

Kuina, hundreds and thousands of defeats, was a blessing. He learned from her, just as he had learned from losing with Shishou: test yourself, find your limits, overcome them, don't do anything stupid. _Well, the latter will be difficult._

Kuina's technique was good, not as skilled as Sensei's, and not as accurate as his sister's—

_Her black hair is pulled back into a severe bun, her bangs tickle her nose, her sharp gray eyes analyze his for importance, and a cold grin slides over her thin lips._

_"You know we're not allowed to talk, young master, don't you?"_

_"Teach me"._

—but she's insanely good. And it will get even better.

Even if, years later, he could laugh out loud at it, standing on his feet only because of Wado, somewhere in West Blue, because the roads are moving, and already the fourth sea out of four believes that women are weak.

This is ridiculous. Incredibly funny, and shishou and onyo-san laugh with him in the chime of the three earrings, and Kuina echoes in the hidden blade. It's so funny that he can't stop for ten minutes and then can't move for another two hours.

Zoro grew up in a place where women were stronger than men. Where priestesses were revered and desired more than priests; where a woman with his hair was born once in ten or even twenty generations, and was stronger than men in prosperity ten times; where female warriors were more common, despite the fact that only a quarter of the population was not inclined to martial arts. An island where his blood was expected to be strong enough to ( _in an ideal world,_ as shishou used to curse) give the priestess an heiress with their hair and eyes.

_"How low," Shishou would tell him when she caught him in a class with one of the teachers, and he didn't understand how exactly he should give shishou another child._

_For a moment, he thought it was possible to kill with a look._

The amount of dirt he had heard about the elders would never leave his ears, which, surprisingly, could be useful in the port taverns.

The sea was still strange, even though he had sailed from Sensei five years ago, and in total, more than seven years of sailing, he had experienced scurvy, hunger, dehydration, his stomach absorbed the sea water, his skin was covered with burns, and the fish was not bad and raw. The sea had always tried to kill him, but even so, he was... grateful.

_The sea had carried him as far away from home as possible._

No one here has ever heard of his home, or even of the land of the samurai. And no one cared what color his hair was (they thought it was dyed, but that's another story), and no one doubted his origin. The marines didn't care that he was from the enemy theory, wearing on his head the ardent sign of his homeland.

And no one cares.

And it was _amazing_.

_— My name is Monkey D. Luffy and I will be the Pirate King!_

And then the sea became his constant satellite, pitting him against the stupidest captain in the world and the one he would die for without a second thought. The sea has brought to other people, to nakama, to adventure, leading to a dream and a future death, because the probability of Luffy passing by his island is zero. The sea roars below deck and sprinkles salt in his hair, unknown to anyone, but strange even on the Grand Line people do not believe in his powers without using the Fruit, and Chopper is adamant that his body is not enough just sleep for treatment.

_Oh, Zoro knows he's not immortal. Shishou's torso was cut open, organs spilled out, blood and flesh soaked, bones licked until he couldn't move, but he knows, he saw it in the apologetic eyes and the muffled words, **she was still alive.**_

Being children of the sun and the earth means having strange green hair and orange eyes that will disappear when you leave home. Being children of the sun and the earth means giving yourself and your life to others, for the sake of others, protecting and protecting them, regardless of their knowledge about it. Being children of the sun and the earth means to have incredible physical characteristics and an inhuman life span.

_If all had been well, if the island had not bound him to it, if his life had not been given away from the moment of his first breath — he might have lived three hundred years, being the greatest swordsman in the world._

In the chime of earrings Shishou clicks his tongue as the salt eats into his skin, and behind him, Luffy insists that all he needs to heal is meat — he clenches his fists and looks over the side at the supposedly evil, calamity sea.

_"_ _This is stupid, how can the sea make me lose my way?" he decides, as their hair is tangled in the edge, in braids and fates, mirroring the amber of their eyes._

_"I agree", Shishou smiles, touching his forehead with dry lips. "Like it's a minus"._

He's nineteen, six months to twenty, and in his head, his sister's voice darkly counts down the days as Kuina holds his hand back from the hilt of the Wado, and the image of shishou turns white and red.


	4. Chapter 4

Zoro was a good heir to prosperity, a good future priest, just enough to wish the village and its people happiness. To give it to them, because everything, after Shishou, depended entirely on him and his strength. Zoro was brought up with what he had to do for the village, for its people, for their prosperity, and only shishou asked what he wanted.

Zoro would be a good priest. Because he didn't need anything in return. Never.

Zoro lived for others. And that was what Shishou was trying to wean him off of, like a bad habit. Because the village needs them to die from them, _to die for them._ And Shishou knew that Zoro would do just that, without hesitation or fear. And she couldn't imagine anything worse than that.

_"You should worry about yourself", Chopper tells him, long from home, years and a one sea away, almost tearfully bandaging his wounds._

_"Don't worry about me", he smiles, without saying anything about drinking or sleeping, "there's not much that can really hurt me"._

_And that doesn't mean he can tell even Nakama who he is._

He first meets snow in North Blue, where he was taken by a raft made of planks and pure luck. The sea was cold and empty, the islands lifeless and lonely, the people harsh and dangerous. He remembered North Blue by the snow, white and so unusual; the frozen water that instantly melted on his skin; as white as shishou's hair…

_Do not think._

He is seven when he knows ice, snow, and disease. North Blue is prone to all sorts of contagion, stemming from the cold, weakened immunity and "curses from above" swear, wandering sailors here. He is seven when he gets sick for the first time in his life with a rash on his skin, wild itching and ulcers. He's seven when he comes out of this alive, being the only one who's recovered; he's surrounded by corpses.

And he runs. Again. Fearing that someone doesn't like his survival, just as Wano doesn't like his hair... _do not think._ It was probably only after going there once that he could tell at a glance that kok and Law were from there.

He is eight when he climbs out of the cold, rough sea into another, quiet and peaceful one that reminds him of home. Why he never, even ten years later, could completely relax. East Blue may seem calm, but it breeds monsters that no one can see the connection between. (Robin looked back at him thoughtfully when he mentioned it, as if noticing it for the first time, but then immediately forgot — he didn't try again.)

As a child on the run from his own demons and with superhuman vitality, you can get into all sorts of situations. Koshiro can swear that on two occasions, Kuina almost killed Zoro in practice fights. (Zoro knows that this is true; if he wasn't who he is, he would have died of internal bleeding a hundred times already.) A broken spine is unpleasant, but you can live, and if you sleep for three days, you can even get up and go to train.

So Zoro could never understand, _could never accept,_ that Kuina had died by falling down the stairs. Zoro, who once came close to breaking his neck running from home in Wano, throwing himself all over the alleys, twisting his limbs and putting his joints back in the next second to run on, couldn't understand. No way.

Kuina had taught him a lot. Very. But the main thing he learned from her death: people are _fragile_.

And he remembered that as a bounty hunter, twitching every time he was called a demon: it wasn't his fault that humans were so weak that with a little effort and the right angle, he could rip someone's limb off with his bare hands! But a true swordsman is aware of his own and the opponent's strength, for this reason, Mihawk chose almost a toothpick against him _(although he did not realize that even with Kokuto Yoru, he would not be able to kill Zoro right away)._ So when he met Luffy, Zoro was almost happy that at least someone in this sea, in this world, could be strong and resilient by nature.

People named "D." are amazing in their own right. Zoro had spent enough time with Luffy to see people who didn't even have that initial in their name. Even if it may be strange personalities. Zoro still can't seem to ask Robin if there's any chance that Buggy, with his phenomenal survival streak, could be one of the "D."? Just like finding the lost children of the sun and the earth: Monet, who survived the experiments, whose eyes made him tighten his grip on the hilts and clench his teeth until they hurt; Camie, who is made for the sea, from which she sometimes instinctively escapes; Kureha that blooms and smells, walking briskly in short summer clothes and laughing at the cold, as well as at any diseases — Zoro knows that they are, not completely, diluted and indirectly, by his blood. They are similar; they are the ones whose ancestors could leave when they were allowed to; the ones who ran away, just like him. Zoro didn't dare ask Chopper's mentor about it, not seeing any recognition or understanding in the woman's black eyes, which might have been for the best then.

_"I believe you can master the sword", Yomi says, tossing a sheathed katana that weighs at least a hundred kilos in his direction with a slight grin. "After all, one of our relatives was extremely skilled, even if he was a coward"._

_"Really?" he ties his hair into a tight ponytail, blowing off his bangs, dreaming of a thin clip like shishou's._

_"Yes", Yomi laughs, "I think he left the island four generations ago", your face looks a bit like him._

_"Not true!" he exclaimed, having no idea what the man looked like._

The house haunts him in people he has never met.

Ryuma has black hair and gray eyes — he has to blink twice and shake his head. That way, that walk, that grin… he looks so much like Yomi that it's scary. But no, he has _white, fucking white,_ hair and empty eye sockets. Haki, whom he does not know, makes him see images, hallucinations, working on wear and tear and exhausting super-dimensions.

If not for the circumstances, if not millions stupid reason to fight, if not for the Shichibukai and the lost shadow; he would have stopped, would ask, as it was then, in his time, whether he was thus an apostate, which is not to remember how he had gone and why? _Why only Wano? It's close, too close to home. They could have come and found you and killed you. How can you ignore them?_

_"Take it", Yomi says, blood trickling down her right side, implacable and relentless, and one leg twisted in the wrong direction. Green intersects with red when someone else's hands touch his cheeks again, without tears or promises. "Didn't your shishou tell you to run?"_

_He can't say anything to that, his fingers curled around the broken dagger left behind by shishou, who ordered him to leave, ~~or else he's going to die worse than hers…~~_

_"Hey, look at me", nee-san is confident and unwavering, standing firm; her hands reach back, raking his hair into a pile, pulling and... abruptly getting lighter. My head feels almost weightless. "It'll be easier that way"._

_Green hair, heavy, hateful, and disturbing, lies obediently around them, the ends of the crooked cut tickling his neck, Yomi smiles at him sincerely as he briefly lunges forward, clutching at someone else's dark clothing._

_"It's all right", she whispers to him, "you'll be fine"._

_He knows that for this her and her (their?) his parents are executed — he can't help but shake with sobs, who wouldn't allow himself even with shishou._

_~~Probably because he and Shishou were **destined** to die.~~ _

"Take it", Ryuma says, his voice not meant to be like Yomi's, but his tired brain stubbornly denies any other possibility. Zoro touches the back of his head with his free hand, and it seems to him that his short-cropped hair has grown longer.

"All right", he says, and Shisui recognizes him by his blood and spirit in his arms. The sword laughs, not as loudly as Kitetsu, but insistently and probingly.


	5. Chapter 5

_"Do you know what these earrings mean?" Shishou lifts her hair from the left side, the gold long earrings making a light tinkle._

_He breathes heavily, lying on the grass, defeated and exhausted, shishou blocking out the sun, the world drowning in smiles, amber and green._

_"The rule of three 'H'", she continues, well aware of his ignorance, her eyes twinkling in the depths of her pupils and her tone instructively affectionate. "Hazardous , Hardness and Heart. You must be firm enough in your beliefs, strong in your body, and following the call of your heart. A warrior's heart will not deceive. Perhaps this will be your only chance to get out alive from a situation over which you are powerless"._

Kuma is something he can't handle; Kuma is something that could really kill their entire crew; Kuma is something that could kill _his_ captain and _his_ nakama.

Zoro stands there, bleeding, clutching his blades, gnashing his teeth, he can't let himself fall, he knows this body is capable of more. Kuma has a blank look and a loud, almost mechanized voice. He's ready to fight, ready to stand as long as he has to, _if the damn body will finally move._

"Dammit..." he swears, feeling himself _(white on red; in the silence, the chomping sounds are deafening; 'this is your fate', God laughs),_ just as helplessly as he did many, many years ago.

_"And if the heart behaves stupidly?" he blows away the clinging wet bangs, collecting all the dirt and dust with his sweaty clothes._

_Shishou smiles with a dimple at the corner of her mouth._

_"That's what earrings are for. Remind"._

The wind moves green hair, stone dust, and earrings.

He is offered a deal, the most unprofitable, terrible, very similar to the taste of citrus fruits in the garden of the shishou residence, which he hated — _and he agrees._

His life on Luffy's life? _Easy_.

Not the worst thing he got, not the worst thing he experienced, not the worst thing that _could have_ happened to him _(and maybe, maybe, maybe, ~~Zoro, never forget,~~ happen)._ Luffy's pain is overwhelming and tearing from the inside out; Shichibukai chose another place for him from his words, and now Zoro could even feel some gratitude. Shichibukai assured him that he would die, given his injuries, Zoro almost laughed. He wasn't going to die. Not now. _It's not even his deadline yet…_

_"How long are you going to lie around?"_ Kuina is small and demanding, standing over him like a judge or sensei. Her eyes are stern, far more serious than Koshiro's could be, and colder than Yomi's.

"I'm not gonna die", he says to the ghost, being _somewhere_ without having the slightest idea whether he is alive or dead.

_"You're not dead yet",_ she says, and suddenly she chuckles, sitting down next to him, towering and reproving. _"It's funny that I had to die so that you could trust me with your secrets",_ her voice is young, not quite female, not quite childish, and soaked through with longing. She has dark, big eyes and a desire to hit him with something heavier. _"You're — **idiot** , Zoro"_, she spits, looking away and hiding, _"idiot-idiot-idiot..."_

He doesn't argue. Kuina is always right, even as a dead girl in his dying mind. Zoro forces himself to breathe.

_"You're weird", Kuina says when they're doing something other than another fight; she's holding a kitchen knife and vegetables, and he's holding a cleaver and cutting fish._

_"What?" Zoro replied aggressively, almost advancing with just his voice, still shivering from the cold of North Blue. There, such words meant trouble. "Why is that?"_

_Kuina grunts, the knife slicing through the air, the carrots slicing into identical thin slices._

_"You're not letting your father treat your wounds", she says, nodding at the blue dislocation of her shoulder from a bad landing on the ground and the bruises on her knees._

_"Don't worry", he says, not for the first time in her memory, "they're not worth it"._

_For some reason, Kuina thought that even if they opened his stomach, spilling out half of his organs, Zoro would answer the same way. She grimaced, putting aside the uninvited vague thoughts. Even Zoro can't be such a hopeless idiot._

Zoro had done three of the most selfish things in his life that shishou could be both proud of and willing to rip his ears off.

In the first place, he had run away, renouncing everything he knew, everything he had lived and been, running away so far, washing his feet in blood, cutting off his hair and smearing it with thick tar, hiding behind oceans and unknown expanses, starving to death and digesting seawater instead of drinking water. For myself, only for myself and my life, wasting the lives of Yomi and thier parents, without looking back and without thinking about home. He refused to ever grow his hair back, each time frantically, almost paranotically, grabbing for scissors, knives, or, if nothing else, swords. He had given up the sun in his eyes, as shishou called them, and Yomi had smiled, never getting used to the blank gray in a decade (he had once been told that his eyes were so light that they seemed blind; well, he couldn't deny that a stranger was frowning back at him from the mirror.)

In the second place, he challenged Kuina. Over and over again. Again, again, again, again, and again. Three thousand times. Not a single victory. But he did not back down, never doubting in the slightest that he would one day overcome this obstacle. Until Kuina said the most unspeakable stupid thing he'd ever heard. Kuina believed that girls are weaker than boys that he will grow up a man and the only reason will win — it was funny, he wanted to laugh, to tell her about shishou, the strongest woman in his life, if not the world, about her skills and the fear that it could cause other a glance, (shishou was white hair and aged wrinkles, shishou was blind eyes and cold hands, shishou was weak voice and the blood tastes like rot) but it only angered him and he just says, what Kuina stupid idiot, unaware of the talk. There is a promise between him, the night, the sword, and Kuina. A promise that he carries with the same loyalty and confidence that he swore to the village that took the lives of Shishou and himself. Wado warms his hand and side, and Kuina's voice is reflected in shishou's earrings and Yomi's laughter, and he idly thinks that they will get along wherever they are right now. Shishou will look after Kuina, and Yomi will tell her some embarrassing stories about him. Zoro is more certain of this than he is of the fact that the world is moving, not he is wandering aimlessly.

In the third place, In the third place, Luffy. He met Luffy and followed him. He did what he became good at and what he was always good at: he lived for others. The useful with the pleasant. Even if no one really noticed, and Zoro's sacrifice was always attributed to his loyalty and affection for Nakama. Which was a consequence, but not a cause, _because Zoro is always loyal to those he chose, to the detriment of himself._

_On Sabaody his burning lungs and blurry vision. For the first time, Luffy ordered them to run, to retreat, to catch up with each other through three days. The blurred huge spot has a voice that is familiar and does not promise anything good._

_"I can't stop admiring your dedication", Kuma says evenly and emotionlessly, Zoro feels his knees give way under his own weight. "And no less surprised by your tendency to survive"._

_Zoro wants to snap, almost ready, but the sun is hot on his tanned skin, and his long green hair is always on the edge of his subconscious— he bites his tongue until it bleeds, coughing it up._

_"If you could go on vacation, where would you like to be?" ask him, and Zoro smiles against his will. Such a ridiculously stupid question. It couldn't be worse._

_More than anything, he wanted to…_

_"To shishou", and Zoro doesn't care that this woman has been dead for most of his life._

_Zoro may be faintly glad that no one has realized his momentary weakness in going after his mentor._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zoro has a slight tendency to commit suicide. It's all his upbringings fault.


	6. Chapter 6

When Zoro flies, his mind reacts with pain and nightmares; night and sleep are incompatible concepts in his world order; without Nakama's snoring next to him and the feeling of the sun under his eyelids. But he passes out, once or twice, waking up with a migraine that surpasses the pain of a punctured stomach; damn uncomfortable, and terrible. He hates it.

When Zoro opens his eyes, he sees something pink and crazy flickering. Perona is noise, headache, ghosts, and a trillion childhood habits tied in a red bow in a beautiful package. Zoro will never be able to figure it out, no matter who his captain is; _maybe it's because he didn't have a childhood himself, who knows?_ She is very active and dissatisfied with everything, from and to; and also incredibly demanding, managing to get used to the true owner of the castle almost at the click of her fingers.

When Zoro sees the Mihawk, he is torn between wanting to grab the Wado and raising an eyebrow in question. In my head there is a fantastic image of a mocking bear-like Shichibukai, who made up something for himself, and now Zoro is sorting it out. For a moment, he imagines a meeting between shishou and the world's strongest swordsman... he doesn't hide a smile, guessing that the entire area from the nearby islands would have to be evacuated.

"Do I look funny?" asks Mihawk indifferently, sitting at the dining room's stiffly long table.

"Depends on how you answer", Zoro hasn't played this game in a long time, never had to; among the nakama, it was enough for him to be just Zoro, a protection and a friend who drinks and sleeps, and spends the rest of his available time practicing. It had been a long time since he had needed to try on other roles, and he was happy with that. But this does not mean that he could ever forget everything that he was taught and that he learned himself, wandering on the seas.

"Are you dictating terms to me in my own house?" Shichibukai asks again, and Perona looks at him like he's crazy, telling him to shut up before the two of them get slaughtered. Zoro looks into the yellow eyes, clearly special, part of some clan, a feature of the blood; in the tilt of the head, resting his chin on his hand, the earrings ring.

"Just asking questions", the silence is depressing, but Zoro finds something familiar in it, "but can someone really order the greatest swordsman around? Not counting job responsibilities, of course", he feels like he's being scanned and reinterpreted. Zoro knows what kind of ice he walks on. "However, that wasn't what I was interested in", retreating wasn't in his line, but only in fighting. _Oh, Yomi can be so proud of him._

Mihawk makes a silent sign that he's listening, and Zoro almost chuckles — it was _so_ easy. And now it all depends on the reaction.

"Would you consider a woman a worthy opponent?"

_Zoro watches as Kuina defeats another dojo-defying traveler; he catches the shadow of Sensei, calm but clearly displeased, off to the side. Zoro had long ago learned to read the obvious disapproval between the lines and gestures. Zoro approaches, the trees confuse the way, the sun still blinding his eyes from unaccustomed use._

_Koshiro has thin glasses on the bridge of his nose and a few gray strands among the black, Zoro tries not to shrug his shoulders. One day, he promises himself, he won't react so badly to gray hair anymore._

_"She will win", Zoro says the obvious when Sensei notices him. He smiles, fatherly and condescending, like shishou when he says something she doesn't share with him. Zoro's confusion is mixed with annoyance. "She's strong, stop looking at her like that"._

_"How?" Koshiro is surprised by the sudden outburst, distracted from the predictable fight._

_Zoro doesn't know what exactly this look of disdain, sympathy, and pity is called. But he's terrible._

_"Like she's already lost"._

_After three thousand battle promises and ladders, he'll understand; after five years of wandering the seas, and asking questions, he'll understand; once you meet a fake face Coiny and the same doubt, he'll understand — stupid mans who dare to call themselves warriors do not consider them worthy of himself. And that's stupid. It'll kill them._

Perona's fork has fallen from her hand and her eyes are wide with surprise, perhaps mixed with respect; Mihawk's is filled with a faint approval mixed with incomprehension.

"You have a better chance of surviving than I thought", Shichibukai replies, and Zoro still chuckles.

Maybe they'll get along.

_"I have a dream", he smiles like any four-year-old child, but more softly than loudly, he asks Shishou to lean in, sharing this knowledge as if it were his innermost secret. "I want to—"_

**Don't think about it.**

Sweat flies off his forehead and hands waving in the air katana; throat burns from dryness and the wildest desires to drink sake, or rum, or whiskey, or the cheap swill that he could find; the breath knocked on hundreds of thousands of times, the sun goes up and down, the frustration is driving forward and fall on an almost empty island wings of the disease _(they can't touch it, he knows it)_ and he's choking on something like anger, pain, helplessness, and fear — together.

November was ringing in his head; his earrings were clattering in the calm, counting down the years. He knew how much time was allotted to him. It should have been. Probably.

_He's four or five, and across from him, the elder looks reproachful and shakes his head severely, disappointed in his abilities._

_"Young master, you have your own time, do not rush it", Zoro has scarlet blood flowing down his temple, I am the color of a green kimono and my long green hair is sticking together._

_"Do I have a deadline?" he squints, his bare soles callused from the worn wood, and his back burns from the blows left by the stick. It's red and very tender, but he tries to keep it straight. The blood flows and flows, along the line of his cheekbones, cheek, and chin, dripping, falling down, from more to less, until he learns his lesson._

_The elder chuckles somewhere in his beard, many, many wrinkles hide his dark eyes, the autumn air cools the open wounds._

_"Everything has a time limit, especially in recent generations, young master. Your prosperity will not last as long as Moriko-sama's. I think..." he looks at his figure, as if deciding how long he will last, "...you will have twenty years, young master"._

_A dry leaf sticks to his temple, a chill creeps down his throat, he looks straight ahead, never lowering his eyes, somewhere in the distance he hears their inhabitants walking and working._

_Twenty years is a decent time._

Twenty years is _**nothing** _when the title, nakama, and adventure are waiting for him.

Zoro is twenty years old and stupid, impulsive, and just a little desperate — _he's sure he can hear shishou sigh heavily at every word he says._ Zoro throws Mihawk call knowing that it is not ready, not even close. But he was _twenty_.

_His time is running out in days and hours, his hair will turn gray, and his strength will run out, as will his life, flowing faster than his blood from his wounds, ~~just like shishou did when she called his name—~~_

_" ~~Zoro~~ "._

But he makes mistakes, more and more. He can almost feel a certain tension, and Perona's fright, and Mihawk's frustration. He doesn't care. He shouldn't care.

_"I promise", Wado is white and clean, strong and incredible, and looks so wrong in his hand. So out of place. He has no tears, or strength for them, he has empty eyes, aimed at the sea. "I will become the greatest swordsman", the earrings with unaccustomed weight on the ear and their ringing distracts, calms. "For both of us. It's an oath, Kuina"._

His mistake cost him an eye. And it's _really_ a huge mistake for him to be permanently injured. Although, once Zoro was sure that by chopping off his feet, he would be able to get them back. Well, now he's sure that it's impossible when an empty eye socket doesn't suddenly grow a new eye.

_"I will never be defeated from now on!" he shouts at the sky, tears blurring his already blurry vision. "Is there a problem with that, Pirate King?!"_

_He hears in response such a familiar:_

_"Shi-shi-shi", laughs Luffy, wherever he is under the same sky and in the same sea, "there are none."_

_He is sure that his captain is smiling, and he wishes he could see that smile._

I'm a year and seven months away from meeting Nakama. Zoro is twenty years old, and he is counting the days that he has horribly brazenly stolen from someone. For the first time, Perona silently bandages his wounds, and Mihawk goes to the wine cellar for a couple of days, locked away from people from the inside.

Zoro is twenty years old and _must_ live to be twenty-one.

_"Please live your life, Zoro", Shishou's smile is gentle and sorrowful. "For all of us"._

Perona is a lot of things: a fellow prisoner, a nanny who no one asked for, a loud nuisance, almost a friend _(not a sister, **never** a sister, ~~because all his sisters die for or in his place~~ ),_ and she is also overprotective and loves millions of dresses and toys. Zoro doesn't like either, but his fingers reach into someone else's hair, pulling out the thin, sharp pins.

"Hey!" he hears, the echo of discontent goes along the walls of the old castle and skirts its indifference. Perona is outraged to the core, he sees it in the mirror and feels someone else's tension in his shoulders as he holds her in place.

"Don't move and let me fix _it_ myself", he points to something called a 'hairdo'. Zoro had never been familiar with style or, sea forbid, fashion, but he knew a lot about hair that was longer than Perona's.

The hair in his hands is a sweet pink, his fingers untangling the tangles and tangled, ornate ends slowly and methodically, carefully and gently, as if in a meditation or trance; the comb lies untouched on the side, and the hairpins are clamped between his teeth; the pink strands intertwine as he blinks, and his hands build one of the many structures known to his body, mechanically and familiarly.

Perona has a black dress with pink patterns, bare pale shoulders and tons of makeup; hairpins slide to the top of her head, removing her bangs, thin braids intertwine at the back of her head, over and over, complicated and beautiful, long and mesmerized, if Perona's gaze says something when he finishes and has nothing to do with his hands. A slight sense of loss suffocates, but Perona's eyes in the reflection say that this is not the last time for him.

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to be able to write a lot and long, but it does not work. Therefore, I would be happy to look for a co-author. Or if someone was inspired by the idea, that's fine, too.


End file.
